Search

Background: Disclosure of tuberculosis (TB) status by patients is a critical step in their treatment cascade of care. There is a lack of systematic assessment of TB disclosure patterns and its positive outcomes which happens dynamically over the disease period of individual patients with their family and wider social network relations., Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted in Chennai Corporation treatment units during 2019-2021. TB patients were recruited and followed-up from treatment initiation to completion. Information on disease disclosures made to different social members at different time points, and outcomes were collected and compared. Bivariate and multi variate analysis were used to identify the patients and contact characteristics predictive of TB disclosure status., Results: A total of 466 TB patients were followed-up, who listed a total of 4039 family, extra familial and social network contacts of them. Maximum disclosures were made with family members (93%) and half of the relatives, occupational contacts and friendship contacts (44-58%) were disclosed within 15 days of treatment initiation. Incremental disclosures made during the 150-180 days of treatment were highest among neighbourhood contacts (12%), and was significantly different between treatment initiation and completion period. Middle aged TB patients (31 years and 46-55 years) were found less likely to disclose (AOR 0.56 and 0.46 respectively; p<0.05) and illiterates were found more likely to disclose their TB status (AOR 3.91; p<0.05). Post the disclosure, family contacts have mostly provided resource support (44.90%) and two third of all disclosed contacts have provided emotional support for TB patients (>71%)., Conclusion: Findings explain that family level disclosures were predominant and disclosures made to extra familial network contacts significantly increased during the latter part of treatment. Emotional support was predominantly received by TB patients from all their contacts post disclosure. Findings could inform in developing interventions to facilitate disclosure of disease status in a beneficial way for TB patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare that no competing interest exists., (Copyright: © 2023 Nagarajan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Evidence on the extra-household contacts of TB patients who drive disease transmission is scarce., Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional personal social network survey among 300 newly diagnosed index pulmonary TB patients to identify their first-degree extra-household contacts., Results: A significantly higher proportion of neighbourhood (3.5; 95% CI 1.3 to 7.5), occupational (3.2; 95% CI 1.3 to 9.2) and friendship contacts (2.2; 95% CI 0.8 to 4.5) developed TB within 1 y of the index patient's diagnosis than their household contacts (0.7; 95% CI 0.3 to 1.3). Similarly, a higher proportion of extra-household contacts had TB at different time points before the index patient was diagnosed., Conclusion: Extra-household contacts of TB patients could be a potential source of TB or could be at increased risk of TB., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.)

Background: Contact tracing data of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is used to estimate basic epidemiological parameters. Contact tracing data could also be potentially used for assessing the heterogeneity of transmission at the individual patient level. Characterization of individuals based on different levels of infectiousness could better inform the contact tracing interventions at field levels., Methods: Standard social network analysis methods used for exploring infectious disease transmission dynamics was employed to analyze contact tracing data of 1959 diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 patients from a large state of India. Relational network data set with diagnosed patients as "nodes" and their epidemiological contact as "edges" was created. Directed network perspective was utilized in which directionality of infection emanated from a "source patient" towards a "target patient". Network measures of " degree centrality" and "betweenness centrality" were calculated to identify influential patients in the transmission of infection. Components analysis was conducted to identify patients connected as sub- groups. Descriptive statistics was used to summarise network measures and percentile ranks were used to categorize influencers., Results: Out-degree centrality measures identified that of the total 1959 patients, 11.27% (221) patients have acted as a source of infection to 40.19% (787) other patients. Among these source patients, 0.65% (12) patients had a higher out-degree centrality (> = 10) and have collectively infected 37.61% (296 of 787), secondary patients. Betweenness centrality measures highlighted that 7.50% (93) patients had a non-zero betweenness (range 0.5 to 135) and thus have bridged the transmission between other patients. Network component analysis identified nineteen connected components comprising of influential patient's which have overall accounted for 26.95% of total patients (1959) and 68.74% of epidemiological contacts in the network., Conclusions: Social network analysis method for SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing data would be of use in measuring individual patient level variations in disease transmission. The network metrics identified individual patients and patient components who have disproportionately contributed to transmission. The network measures and graphical tools could complement the existing contact tracing indicators and could help improve the contact tracing activities.

Drawbacks and limitations of recently available therapies to hepatocellular cancer (HCC) devoted the scientist to focus on emerging new strategies. ZnO nanoparticles (ZnONPs) based chemotherapeutics has been emanating as a promising approach to maximize therapeutic synergy facilitating the discovery of novel multitargeted combinations. In the present study we conjugated ZnONPs with ferulic acid (ZnONPs-FAC) characterized by computational, spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. In vitro anticancer potential has been evaluated by assessing cell viability, morphology, ROS generation, mitochondrial membrane permeability, comet assay, immunofluorescent staining of 8-OHdG, Ki67 and γ-H2AX, cell cycle analysis and western blot analysis and in vivo anticancer potential against DEN induced HCC was analyzed by histopathological and immunohistochemical methods. The results revealed that ZnONPs-FAC induces cell death through apoptosis and can suppress the DEN-induced HCC. Our study documents therapeutic potential of nanoparticle conjugated with phytochemicals, suggesting a new platform for combinatorial chemotherapy., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Estuaries receive a considerable amount of pollutants from various sources. Presently an attempt has been made to assess whether the aquaculture discharges and dredging activities alter the ecological conditions of Vellar-Coleroon estuarine complex. The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) established a framework for the protection of marine waters. In this commission, a variety of indices were used, among them, AMBI (AZTI Marine Biotic Index) indices along with multivariate statistical approach is unique, to assess the ecological status by using macrobenthic communities. Keeping this in view, stations VE-1 and VE-4 in Vellar; CE-6 and CE-7 in Coleroon estuaries showed moderately disturbed with the AMBI values ranging between 3.45 and 3.72. The above said stations were situated near the shrimp farm discharge point and sites of dredging activities. The present study proves that various statistical and biotic indices have great potential in assessing the nature of the ecosystem undergoing various human pressures., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)